The present invention is generally directed to a cooling device and system for use in conjunction with portable computing devices especially laptop and notebook personal computers. More particularly, the present invention is directed to the inclusion of a visor which is hinged to the computer display screen for the placement and cooling of electrical components which tend to run hotter than other components which typically occurs because their power dissipation is a function of operating frequency.
Notebook and laptop computers are increasingly including microprocessor designs which produce significant amounts of heat during operation. In particular, it is noted that the thermal energy dissipated by such devices increases approximately as the second power of the voltage and as the first power of frequency. Thus, a doubling in frequency results in a four-fold increase in power. Nonetheless, the demand for increasingly fast operation speeds requires the utilization of microprocessor devices which run at higher and higher frequencies. Accordingly, demand for increased processing capabilities for these chips means that thermal energy dissipation requirements will undoubtedly increase.
Nonetheless, it is seen that the typical placement for thermally critical microprocessor and memory components in a notebook or laptop-type personal computer is within the base unit of the machine itself. These base units are already crowded with various components including a keyboard and numerous peripheral devices such as hard disk drives (removal and non-removable), floppy disk drives, CD-ROM drives, batteries and PC cards (formerly called PCMCIA cards). Placement of microprocessor components in such areas makes cooling difficult particularly since these components are packed very compactly in notebook and laptop PC designs. Furthermore, there is little opportunity for ventilation for such devices within the base units.
While one solution to the problem posed above is the placement of certain circuit components in the screen portion of a notebook or laptop computer, it is nonetheless noted that the typical liquid crystal display (LCD) screen used for such portable computing devices is sensitive in its operation to temperature. Accordingly, placement of such devices in the screen might cause local variations in screen images which is not a desirable characteristic.